Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx

One of the best works of investigative journalism in years, Random Family tells the story of growing up in the Latino ghettos of the Bronx, a story of drug-dealers, young mothers, poverty and violence, a family saga like no other.

It’s 1985 in the Bronx and teenagers Jessica and Coco are dating drug dealers and getting pregnant. Fifteen years later, they each have five children, Jessica is a grandmother and her drug-dealer boyfriend is serving a life sentence. Welcome to their world.

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, a prize-winning investigative journalist, has spent a decade accompanying and recording the lives of a motley crew of Latinos living in the Bronx. The result is this extraordinary portrait of love, sex and survival, one of the most riveting and highly acclaimed books of the decade.